PARIS.
Mr. Field, the celebrated pianist, and most distinguished pupil of Clementi, is in this city, and proposes to give a public concert on the 25th of December. His success cannot be for an instant doubtful; for, besides ranking deservedly high as a composer, he is, perhaps, the sweetest and most beautiful performer on the pianoforte now in existence. There is in his style that inexpressible charm with which we used formerly to be so delighted when hearing Clementi, Dussek, and some other distinguished members of a school which now can hardly be said to exist but in the recollection of a few. Mr. Field represents that school in all its glory. To look at his hands, which scarcely seem to move; to contemplate the calmness of his countenance while playing, one would be tempted to suppose he was performing nothing but the easiest music in the world; while the fact is, that the greatest, the most complicated difficulties, are really no difficulties at all to him. Under Mr. Field’s fingers the piano is no longer a mere piece of mechanism; it sings, and seems as competent to produce sustained tones, as though it were played with a bow. Touched by this exquisite performer, it is a real musical instrument, and no longer a mere theatre for the exhibition of tours de force, the use to which the kind of talent possessed by a majority of what are called the greatest artists of the present day nearly confines it.
Théâtre Italien.—Although the performance of La Straniera satisfied the Parisian critics, as it had already those of London,[20] how little claim Bellini has to the rank as a composer which his Italian flatterers have assigned him! The beauty of the scenery and decorations, added to the singing of Grisi, Rubini, and more especially Tamburini, gave it a popularity which lasted through several repetitions. It was followed by Il Pirata, this by Donizetti’s Anna Bolena, and the latter by Mosè in Egitto. Otello and Don Giovanni are announced, in the latter of which the three female characters are to be performed by the two sisters Grisi and Mad. Tadolini, and the part of Don Juan by Tamburini. But for the singing and acting of Rubini, the Pirata would have been a complete failure. Mdlle. Doulx, a young lady who has obtained some reputation at the Conservatoire for the purity of her voice and the facility of her execution, selected the part of Imogene for her début: the choice was a bad one, because the qualifications necessary to make a good representative of Imogene are exactly the reverse of those which Mdlle. Doulx is said to possess: Imogene requires energy rather than grace; tone and volume of voice rather than agility in running divisions. It was impossible, however, to judge what the young lady might have done under other circumstances, for she was in a state of such dreadful alarm, especially during the first act, that not a note could be heard from her lips, and it appeared at times as if she could not support herself on the stage.
In Anna Bolena, Giudetta Grisi was no substitute for Mad. Pasta; little was attended to, and nothing applauded but Rubini’s Percy. His aria in the second act, notwithstanding its length and the fatigue of the singer, was vociferously encored. The revival of Mosè in Egitto has been very successful, but owes its success chiefly to the singing of Tamburini and Rubini, whose duet, ‘Parlar, spiegar,’ is one of the most finished exhibitions of the vocal art ever witnessed. Boccabadati was so ill on the first night, that her part, Elcia, has been since taken by Giudetta Grisi.
We had occasion recently to be present at a practice of the pupils educated in the Conservatoire of Classical Music, under the direction of M. Choron, and observed several circumstances, both in the system pursued by that professor, and its practical results, that appeared to us remarkable. The first thing that struck us was the extreme difficulty which must have attended the attempt to make a whole mass of people sing as an individual. At the first blush one would suppose the thing impracticable, but the patience first of the professor, and subsequently of his scholars themselves, has achieved a victory over obstacles that might have been pronounced, until the contrary was proved by the fact, insurmountable. The success of M. Choron’s system of teaching ought to attract the attention of Government the more strongly because he has had for pupils only children taken promiscuously from a population at once poor, and, unfortunately, ill-disposed towards music and the arts in general. From this circumstance some judgment may be formed of what his success would have been had his system been applied to scholars of a more select kind.
One of the most remarkable sights in Mr. Choron’s school are some children, the eldest only five years old, whom the professor obliges to listen constantly to music, with the intention of accustoming their ears to harmonic sensations. He watches with extreme care the development of their infant faculties, and observes every day a progress so sensible, as to encourage the hope that the result will be an organization entirely musical. It is to be hoped that Government will comprehend that so much devotion and intelligence deserves to be encouraged, and that it will enable the establishment directed by M. Choron to extend its efforts as widely as it formerly did, by restoring to it that assistance of which it ought never to have been deprived.